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The Crime at Black Dudley (Albert Campion Mystery, #1)

Margery Allingham

Start date: May 1, 2017

Finish date: May 31, 2017

Discussion: Group reads

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What Members Thought

May 18, 2016 Judy rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is an endearingly bonkers Golden Age mystery, more of a thriller than a whodunit. I have a very soft spot for The Crime at Black Dudley because it is the first appearance of Margery Allingham's beloved detective, silly ass Albert Campion. There's also endless 1920s slang to enjoy, sometimes reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse. Yet another pleasure is the fact that the book is set in the Suffolk countryside, an area Allingham knew well.

The book starts off as a house party mystery, where guests ras ...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Mar 08, 2008 Nancy Oakes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series-first-novel, classic-mystery-fiction, crime-fiction-uk, crime-fiction

As far as mysteries and plots go, this one is different. Even though it is set in an old English country home (my very favorite mysteries have this setting), the murder has a bit of a twist to it. I won't say what it is. But it all starts when young Wyatt Petrie has a few close friends to his ancestral home for a weekend. Well, a few close friends plus a stranger: Mr. Albert Campion, about whom no one knows anything, just that he seems to be a major bumbler (at first, anyway). After the first ni ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2010 Jan C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, between-the-wars, england, gr-group-read, 2011

enjoyable mystery. bunch of people (most of them invited) go to a weekend house party. a game is played in the dark with a dagger. can anything good come out of a situation like that?

things go from bad to worse and the party is suddenly being held prisoner and there are all sorts of trap doors, etc. almost farcical at times.

i'll be looking for more of hers. I read some back in the eighties but didn't really enjoy them so much. maybe cause I hadn't read this, the first one.

need to find the old s ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2011 Jenn Estepp rated it it was ok

Shelves: sleuths-and-gumshoes

i'm pretty lukewarm on this one; seems like it's going to be a typical, british country house mystery, then turns into an odd hostage situation and then something else and the resolution was rather unsatisfying ... i suspect it's not the best introduction to albert campion, although it is technically his first appearance. perhaps i'll give one of the others a go. ...more

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May 03, 2017 Everyman rated it liked it

I hate to give a negative review to a Margery Allingham, but The Crime at Black Dudley was, in my opinion, a dud.

I hasten to add, though, that some members of the Goodreads group which read it liked it, so consider other reviews than mine.

As to the book itself: it starts as a classic English country house mystery of the pre-WWII vintage. We have the familiar opening of guests, mostly of the "bright young thing" category, being introduced to us as they arrive at Black Dudley for the weekend. An I hate to give a negative review to a Margery Allingham, but The Crime at Black Dudley was, in my opinion, a dud.

I hasten to add, though, that some members of the Goodreads group which read it liked it, so consider other reviews than mine.

As to the book itself: it starts as a classic English country house mystery of the pre-WWII vintage. We have the familiar opening of guests, mostly of the "bright young thing" category, being introduced to us as they arrive at Black Dudley for the weekend. And things unfold in a fairly uneventful fashion until the group decides to play a game in the dark passing around the famous Black Dudley dagger.

And from there, things become anything but conventional.

The title, for one, is misleading. There is not a crime at Black Dudley. There is a vast litany of crimes, murder of course being only the first of many. On a quick mental run-through I identified fifteen crimes which take place, some of them quite serious. I'll hide the full list in case you want to wait to read the book: (view spoiler)

The plot, such as it is, eventually brings all the guests under the thumb of an evil master criminal and his henchmen (all the servants in the house, it turns out, are his minions) who keep them captive in the house until some lost property is returned. The majority of the book concerns the guests trying to escape from the house and being perpetually thwarted.

The book fairly quickly morphs from a traditional mystery story into a complete farce, with secret passages, a madwoman, people running hither and thither, through fireplaces, being locked up in various rooms, some being tortured to try to find out what they know about the lost properties, and a love story occasionally intruding for no discernible reason into the mix. Much of the book reads to me like the script for a Marx Brothers film.

And the event that finally gets them rescued from the house as they are about to be immolated wholesale is so unlikely and, again, farcical that my eyes almost rolled out of my head.

So why did I give it three stars instead of one or two? Well, for one thing it's well written. For another, it is the first book of Allingham's Campion series, and as such there is a reason to read it beyond the actual plot in order to see the development of Campion throughout the series. And for a third, enough other people liked the book that you may well enjoy it much more than I did, and I don't want to totally turn people off from the book.

But if you decide to read it, be prepared for one of the weirdest Golden Age mysteries you're likely to encounter.

...more

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Jun 19, 2013 Becky rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: readin2013

I'm so glad that The Black Dudley Murder was not my first introduction to Margery Allingham or Albert Campion. (The Case of the Late Pig was a fantastic introduction.)

George Abbershaw, our narrator, is a house-guest at a weekend party in a country house. (The "country house" is quite gothic in nature.) He accepted the invitation because he's madly in love with a young woman, Margaret Oliphant, and he'd heard that she was to be in attendance. A whole weekend with her, he might even work up the n ...more

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Sep 25, 2020 Bronwyn marked it as want-to-read-do-not-own · review of another edition

Shelves: european, title-a-i, mystery-detective-suspense, ebook, novels, series, do-not-own, author-a-i, by-women

I got about 40% before my library hold expired. I just didn’t enjoy it after the first bit. I may go back to it, but it’s not for me right now.

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Apr 05, 2025 Marcella rated it liked it

Shelves: murder-mysteries, fiction, 2025-52-book-challenge

This is a strange Golden Age mystery. Used to Agatha Christie's clockwork plots, I found myself a little lost in a story that starts as a Weekend Manor House murder but swerves into international crime gangs. Most of the characters are interchangeable and forgettable except for Albert Campion, who is a fun upper-class rogue a little more zany than Lord Peter Wimsey. The denouement was a little unsatisfying as well, with a motive that is not even hinted at in the rest of the story. Perhaps her la This is a strange Golden Age mystery. Used to Agatha Christie's clockwork plots, I found myself a little lost in a story that starts as a Weekend Manor House murder but swerves into international crime gangs. Most of the characters are interchangeable and forgettable except for Albert Campion, who is a fun upper-class rogue a little more zany than Lord Peter Wimsey. The denouement was a little unsatisfying as well, with a motive that is not even hinted at in the rest of the story. Perhaps her later books are more tightly written.

The most interesting part was a set piece that was possibly the inspiration for the "wheel of swords in Knives Out":

"By far the most striking thing in the whole room was an enormous trophy which hung over the fire-place farthest from the door. It was a vast affair composed of some twenty or thirty lances arranged in a circle, heads to the centre, and surmounted by a feathered helm and a banner resplendent with the arms of the Petries. Yet it was the actual centre-piece which commanded immediate interest. Mounted on a crimson plaque, at the point where the lance-heads made a narrow circle, was a long, fifteenth-century Italian dagger." Rian Johnson, did you read this?

"Made in the very beginning of the century, it belonged to the time when, as some brilliant American has said, cars were built, like cathedrals, with prayer."

"Mr Albert Campion then did the first intelligent thing Abbershaw had observed in him. He obliterated himself and faded away up the passage, leaving them together."

"And “Der Schwarzbund”. And “The Chicago Junker”, and now our own little “0072” at the Yard,’ said Mr Campion, and there was no facetiousness in his tone."

Another coincidence--this is decades before Ian Fleming. It makes me wonder if the "007" didn't originate with him.

And finally a hilarious example of when slang changes so dramatically it causes absolute howlers:

"Let’s talk about something else,’ he said. ‘I can keep up my pecker in the face of anything else but a corpse." ...more

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Nov 06, 2016 Nanosynergy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-thrillers-espionage, series, fiction, fiction-1920s, 2019read

First book in Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion series. Campion is a quirky, Columbo-like character. He plays a low-key role in the first book. Part of the plot reminded me a bit of A Man Lay Dead. ...more

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